Part 1: Structure and Context of the Research
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE THESIS
Entrance Story: Filling a Gap in Evangelical Theology
Throughout the last two decades, increasing numbers of spiritually gifted New Zealand believers have moved beyond the charismatic renewal, searching for a greater reality between faith and their leadership roles in society. Our faith has been born and nurtured in the midst of revival, with the work of the Spirit central to our spirituality. We are searching for significant theologies of societal transformation and informed leadership configurations in secular society in order to revitalize the national soul and vision. In this thesis I seek theological pathways towards this end.
The personal cameos[1] which introduce this study reflect my thirty years of involvement in developing communal theologies. For the roots of theology are autobiographical, though theology is not an autobiography. The autobiographical is in community.
At times between 1976 to 1984, I was back in New Zealand after living in various Manila slums. I spoke across the New Zealand charismatic renewal movement and called many renewed churches to commitment to the poor. A significant percentage of evangelical churches in both mainline and evangelical denominations were experiencing direct encounters with what evangelical theology defines as the Holy Spirit. Waves of small confessional groups, prayer movements and signs and wonders occurred up and down the country.
I spoke concerning the progression of renewal to revival, teaching from Luke 4: 18: The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. It is a declaration that wherever the anointing of the Spirit occurs, it is for the purpose of preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God among the poor. Jesus then expands on the context of that proclamation — a context of healing and deliverance, social involvement and an understanding that jubilee has come where economic issues are addressed. I used the Acts 2 story to demonstrate how the empowering of the first church resulted in new economics and new social structures of the Kingdom (1985/2004:152).
This theme of the Kingdom of God became popular among national leaders in the Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, influenced further by sources from the global charismatic Evangelical and Pentecostal world. Embryonic teaching on socio-economic aspects of the Kingdom began to develop. The story became communal. In today’s world, the communal is globalized.
Ten years on, moving on from pioneering in Calcutta in 1991, I found myself drafting the goals for the global AD2000 city leaders' network around the theme of city evangelisation and transformation. As I presented it to a grouping of Evangelical and Pentecostal global mission leaders, there was quiet rejection. How does transformation help evangelisation? The link between preaching the Kingdom and socio-economic transformation was distant from the mainstream evangelical mindset at that time.
This had changed radically by the end of the century. In giving guidance to two global city leadership networks around these themes, I have seen such ideas and concepts multiplied in a number of cities.
By 2001, urban mission leaders were writing articles like Ten Paradigm Shifts Towards Transformation (Swanson, 2003). George Otis Jr., leader of the Sentinel Group which researches spiritual phenomena in cities and countries and who was part of the AD2000 leadership, subsequently developed a video demonstrating the theme, simply called “Transformations” (1999). Over 8000 sold within a few months.
As part of modelling this in the local context, in January 1996, I invited an ad hoc group of fifteen Auckland charismatic and Pentecostal leaders to the home of the then deputy mayor to discuss issues of citywide leadership. This group, meeting monthly for the next six years, becoming the Action Group then the Vision for Auckland forum.
These leaders had emerged during the charismatic renewal which swept through most churches in New Zealand in the 1960’s - 1980’s and resulted in expanding the Evangelical/Pentecostal wing of the Christian churches to approximately 6% of New Zealand’s population among the 10-15%% of Kiwis who seek to attend church weekly, 17-19% who seek to attend 2-3 times per month or more.[2] Results from this season of spiritual encounters included a culturally adaptive entrepreneurial Christianity, several significant Pentecostal denominations, renewal movements within traditional denominations, structural changes in some denominations and inner personal character and vision formed by revival dynamics in many lives. However, the penetration of this renewal into society, its consummation in significant societal movement towards the values of the Kingdom of God, seemed frustratingly distant.
At a hui[3] following two years reflecting with the Vision for Auckland Action Group, the following challenges were made to seventy leaders of the church of Auckland (Grigg, 1999b).
1. The call to unity:
networked leadership infrastructure with common visions.
2. The call to redefine the soul of the city
from bicultural reconciliation to a multicultural church and city.
3. The call to Kingdom transformation
of values and institutional directions of major sectors of society in the
midst of decline of Western (Pakeha) civilisation.
4. The call to a progression of public events
that transform public perception of Christianity.
5. The call to prepare for the emergence of a multicultural youth revival
and integrate it into sustaining movement structures.
6. The call to waves of repentant, broken holiness
that release evangelisation of the unchurched 80% and lift
church attendance from 16% to 20% to 25%.
I began this thesis as a reflection on these six calls but then focussed on the theological elements of the call to transformation of values in sectors of Auckland city.[4] I will develop this study around two themes related to transformation – revival and the Kingdom of God. In the New Zealand revival a certain level of clarity developed in relation to these two themes, collectively owned across the eldership of the renewal.
In 1982 as I had founded Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor, I brought “Kingdom of God and the Poor” seminars to many charismatic churches. Then a group including Wyn Fountain, Bernie Ogilvie, Brian Hathaway, Tom Marshall and others built a network nationally, taking teaching about the Kingdom to churches in towns across the nation. They published a Kingdom Manifesto and later Brian Hathaway integrated this into a book (1990) about his Brethren assembly, which had applied these principles in Te Atatu Peninsula. Tom Marshall, a businessman and pastor, published a magazine, Saltshaker, for several years. This expanded on these issues. After his death, the Bible College of New Zealand integrated it into Reality magazine. This continued to emphasize the themes of the Kingdom disseminated into every sector of society.
The ThesisThe outcome of this study is a missions theology underlying both process and goals of “Citywide Transformative Revival.” This has been grounded in local realities of Auckland as a representative modern/ postmodern city.
Global processes among urban missions strategists and theologians have provoked the question, “What is the relationship of the Spirit of Christ to the transformation of a postmodern city?” I have examined this in a limited manner by using two local indicators, the NZ revival (for the work of the Holy Spirit) and Auckland city (for emergent modern/ postmodern megacities). This has resulted in an exploration of revival theology and its limitations among Auckland’s Pentecostals and Evangelicals and a proposal for a theology of transformative revival that engages the postmodern city. Thus, the study oscillates between local analysis and global theologies.[5]
To accomplish this within an evangelical perspective I propose as a research framework, a new hermeneutic of “transformational conversations”, an interfacing of faith community conversations and urban conversations.
I use this to develop a new theory of “citywide transformative revival” as an expansion of revival theories, a field within pneumatology. Citywide transformative revival is a concept of synergistic revivals in multiple sectors of a mega-city. This results in long-term change of urban vision and values towards the principles of the Kingdom of God.
I develop a theology of transformative process from apostolic and prophetic themes. These are outcomes of gifts released in revival. Transformative revival results in new transformative apostolic and prophetic structures that engage the postmodern city soul.
Transformation implies goals. I explore the results of revival, the transformative visions for the city, from themes of the City of God and the Kingdom of God. I expand largely “spiritual” Western formulations of the Kingdom to a holistic Kingdom vision of the spiritual, communal and material aspects of the postmodern city.
Part 1: Frameworks
The present chapter surveys content, the genre of urban missions, steps in the research process, definitions and presuppositions. In Chapter 2, I develop the hermeneutic framework in a theory of “transformational conversations”. Chapter 3 lays a foundation from historical trends in the literature on social transformation and its relationship to pneumatology.
Part 2: A Theory of Transformative RevivalIn Part 2, I develop a theory of “transformative revival” examining the cradle of citywide revival — the church in Auckland (chapter 4) in the context of the rise and decline of the 25-year charismatic renewal in New Zealand (5). This is evaluated in the light of revival movement theories. In chapter 6, I develop a model of classical views of revival and revival movements. This enables an examination (7), of the dramatic reversal of Evangelicals as a disenfranchised minority over 30 years, from non-engagement to “enraged” engagement with societal issues.
In Chapter 8, I move beyond engagement to a theory of “transformative revival” in examining the release of prophetic roles in transformative revival (9) and apostolic engagement in multiple sectors of Auckland (10), describing this in more detail in the business sector (11).
Part 3 moves from a theology of revival process to a theology of end-goals for transformative revival. It focuses on discerning the vision for the city, beginning with reflections on a biblical theology of the ideal city of God and the work of the Spirit in its genesis (12).
I link this ideal nature of the city with items derived from modern urban social theories (13). Then expand this with a second conversation between postmodern urban exegesis and its implications for Auckland (14) and a response from the viewpoint of the Kingdom of God as centre of a transformation web of belief (15). Evangelical understandings of the Kingdom of God are expanded to provide theological content for new cultural conversation themes – in the material, postmodern humanness, community and an alternative social order.
I define revival as the experience of the person of the Holy Spirit falling on groups resulting in a dramatic transformation of their Christianity, caused by or resulting in repentance, accompanied by boldness in evangelism, power, love and unity.
A revival movement occurs when the Holy Spirit falls on multiple groups, as those initially touched by the Spirit, go in power and take his presence into related social groups.
Transformation, in the text on Social Transformation of the Wheaton 83 Consultation is:
The change from the condition of human existence contrary to God’s purposes to one in which people are able to enjoy fullness of life in harmony with God (World Evangelical Fellowship, 1983: section 11).
I use transformative revival for a consummated revival movement. It may cause a cultural revitalization, beginning with engagement in the public domain.[6] Then as major paradigm shifts occur within a generation or so, progressively transforming the values and vision of major cultural sectors with the values of the Kingdom. The public domain is that space of conversation about vision, values and structure between diverse ethnicities, interest groups and corporate structures in sectors of the city.
The Movements
Evangelicalism includes traditionally orthodox[7] Protestants from many denominations and includes Pentecostals, charismatics, conservatives and fundamentalists. The term was popularized during the Great Awakening in Britain and the US, dramatic periods of revival resulting in conversion of hundreds of thousands. Three global networks currently link these: World Evangelical Fellowship, the Lausanne Movement and, during the 1990’s the AD2000 movement now morphed into the Transformation Movement. Central to Evangelicalism is belief in the atoning work of Christ for salvation, the necessary proclamation of the gospel and the authority of the written Word of God “in faith and practice.”[8] The term came to represent a historic conflict with “liberal”[9] Protestants who are defined as those who would not necessarily centralize verbal evangelism or historic Christian commitments to the authority of the canon as the Word of God.[10]
The Pentecostal movements[11] grew in multiple indigenous movements parallel to Evangelicalism, involving those who by their own definition, have passed through two determining experiences in their relationship to the God of the Bible.[12] The first experience is conversion based on repentance and receipt of forgiveness through the atoning work of Christ on the cross. The second is a concomitant or subsequent experience of the “baptism of the Spirit” which may signify receipt of the Holy Spirit, extra empowering, anointing or a host of other existential experiences.[13], Global researcher, David Barrett defines,
Christians who are members of Pentecostal denominations… whose major characteristic is a rediscovery of and a new experience of the supernatural with a powerful and energising ministry of the Holy Spirit in the realm of the miraculous that most other Christians have considered to be highly unusual (1988:124).
Generally, Pentecostals identify these experiences as the release of spiritual gifts and in particular, the gift of speaking in tongues (glossolalia). In practice, only half of Pentecostals actually speak in tongues.[14] The specificity of these doctrines results in the establishing of independent Pentecostal churches although these rapidly form into some form of denominational structures.
In comparison, charismatics tend to have had similar experiences of the Holy Spirit but to have chosen to remain within their older denominational structures, forming organised renewal groups. As a result, their interpretations of cause and effect tend to be different. Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans, for example, do not necessarily see the need for a “conversion” experience prior to a “baptism of the Spirit” experience, but rather understand that baptism as an affirmation of their being part of the faithful, born into the church and confirmed into their faith.
Many charismatics do not see “speaking in tongues” as the necessary sign of the “baptism of the Spirit”,[15] recognizing that the Scriptures teach of multiple giftings for individuals. Many would also consider the work of the Spirit as contiguous with multiple experiences along the pathway of discipleship. The “baptism of the Spirit” as a sign of conversion is not highly differentiated from the “baptism of the Spirit” as a sign of spiritual power and anointing. Charismatics do not see a common doctrinal agreement on these issues as essential – but the reality of the experience and ongoing power in ministry is.
Evangelicals also include Fundamentalists,[16] who tend to be more literal in their understanding of the genesis and use of the Scriptures, to reject many charismatic and Pentecostal experiences of the Holy Spirit and to hold rigid commitments to doctrinal positions with strong emphasis on end-time scenarios. However, many Pentecostals would be fundamentalistic in their view of the Scriptures and attitude to truth. Important within this stream is the century-old teaching of dispensationalism which divides history into seven dispensations each possessing different God-human-state-creation relationships. Significant for this study is their rejection of the “sign gifts.” Many believe these “ceased with the early church.” Thus, they reject renewal, revival and associated phenomena, while working in uneasy alliance with Evangelicals, Pentecostals and charismatics because of sharing other underlying values. The Brethren assemblies, Salvation Army and Churches of Christ, among others, tend to be fundamentalist in New Zealand. Many interdenominational evangelistic groups such as Scripture Union, the Navigators and Open Air Campaigners developed from earlier phases of fundamentalism (Gilling, 1989:43-53).
The Genre of Urban Missiology
This is an urban missions’ theological study. Missiology is well defined as a relatively new[17] but eclectic discipline,[18] accepted across the spectrum of Christian denominations (as best shown perhaps, in the diversity of one of its major journals, The International Review of Missions). It is eclectic, integrating perspectives from four major fields: theology of mission, cultural studies and linguistics, aspects of sociology of religion (particularly movement growth, leadership and church growth) and mission history (related to, but distinct from, church history). A theology of mission cannot be developed independent of these fields.
Within missiology, the field of Urban Missions is well defined. It expands the evangelical mindset into handling heterogeneity, spirituality within the urban environment and a holistic integration of evangelism with response to structural evils (Conn, 1993:96-104). Urban Mission is grounded in urban anthropology (Shipp, 1992:3).[19] In past research, I have found anthropological case study and participant-observer processes to be compatible with involvement in the leadership and movement dynamics that I have been investigating. In terms of urban missions theology, this participatory approach provides a “theology of the people,” as the starting point and partial data for this study.
In this kind of research, I cannot look at the development of mission theologies without referring to the actions they produce — their structural outworking. This, however, differs from development of a comprehensive strategic study in business, as it is an analysis of the theology underlying such strategies. Analysis of theology-based actions is included as illustrative.
The next chapter outlines the hermeneutic and theological research methodology. In this section, I identify research steps taken and identify issues in participant-observer methodology.
Step 1: Literature SearchThroughout the study, I searched for literature in urban missions, focusing on theological issues related to transformative revival. This research covered historic transformational, NZ church-state, urban and revival theologies. As no comprehensive data was available on the transformative workforce or growth of the movements, I collated analyses of the recent growth of the charismatic Evangelical movement (extensive but based on attendance records for some denominations and other available secondary data, such as yearly polls).
Step 2: Networking Analysis of Movement Leaders in AucklandOver four years, I developed a database of significant charismatic and Pentecostal leaders. This involved identifying 736 leaders nationally and 729 mission organizations. These were identified through networking from leader to leader and included my personal interaction with 150 emergent Christian leaders in some secular roles in major societal sectors of Auckland. I complemented this with a database of 1084 Auckland congregations and their leaders, including 350 ethnic congregations and leaders. These had to be identified through networks in each ethnic grouping as many are independent and do not meet in a “church” building but warehouses, school halls and large homes. They included major streams of church life (some mainstream Protestant, many conservative evangelical, majority charismatic evangelical and Pentecostal, a few Catholic). I analyzed these in terms of denomination, 15 societal sectors, or 18 ethnic sectors, and their level of leadership (local, city sector, citywide, national, international) and type of Christianity (evangelical, charismatic, fundamentalist, liberal, Catholic).
Step 3: A Spiral of Action-ReflectionI have used four cycles of action-reflection, following the transformational conversations approach developed in the next chapter.
Cycle 1: Looking Back — Anger at the Loss of a CultureWhile the primary cycle of research was in the city leadership group, I had to go back one cycle to locate their issues in the context of social disempowerment during the expansion of the revival. From the action group discussions came a growing understanding of what had forced Evangelicals into social issues – their sense of disempowerment as New Zealand culture diverged from its Christian foundations. The energy for change however, could frequently be related back to experiences of the Holy Spirit in the renewal. Expansion of these themes required research in the published literature on involvement in public issues.
Cycle 2: Participant-Observation in Theological Action-ReflectionI have been participant-observer in a cycle of action-reflection with the Vision for Auckland leadership. This included think tanks with groups of Christian leaders in each of several societal sectors. In these, I sought to document emerging theologies and to test the viability of elements of teaching on transformative revival. Among the groups were:
The national Vision NZ city leadership network and theology working groups in their reflection process, with leadership and theology working group documents outlining vision, strategy and theology (participant-observer).
The Vision for Auckland leadership team in strategies, ethnic and transformation task forces, public meetings and four consultative hui produced shared visions and fifty-five vision summaries. I was involved in and reviewed the minutes of discussions of over fifty ongoing monthly forums of Vision for Auckland. This was the primary context for continual integration of the broadest level of transformational conversations between Evangelicals and the city (initiator and leader of process for two years, then participant-observer).
This open-ended approach, with initial consultations at national and city leadership levels, resulted in redefinition, particularly my re-examination of the city of God as a theme defining the end goals of revival, with a final preference for the expansion of the Kingdom of God. In a cyclical dynamic, initial leadership gatherings set the ongoing research agendas for my encouraging smaller work groups, developing a web of research studies. I analyzed seven factors including theology, vision, leadership progressions, etc., in twelve societal sectors.
The networks and my roles were:
· An ethnic leaders' network drawn together in hui (as catalyst, participant-leader).
· A network of intercessors across Auckland (as occasional participant, observer).
· A business leaders’ network, sports network, legal network, medical network, etc. (as observer, at times theological integrator).
I created a business leaders’ storytelling process and publication which resulted in a more detailed analysis of the theological nuances occurring in that sector and their relationship to the Kingdom of God as an integrative theme for transformation (as research designer, editor and theologian).
Step 4: Analysis of Theological Conversations from Among the PeopleReflection on the above four cycles enabled me to first develop a model of revival movement processes, then the transformative revival theory. I had to anchor it in the context of Auckland as urban and postmodern environment, identifying conversation spaces between the Kingdom and postmodernism which enable definition of the goals of transformative revival.
Limitations to the ResearchI set the following limits to the study:
1. Representative City: The study is based on Auckland as representative postmodern mega-city. This is not unreasonable as definitions of a modern mega-city include recent rapid growth due to migration, multi-ethnicity, multiple cities within a city and a population of over 1 million. At 1.3 million, it is the 433rd city in terms of population in the world.[20] Comprising several cities, it is the center of northern New Zealand and a center for the Pacific Islands. Relatively new as a city, at only 150 years old, it contains tribal, modern and postmodern elements. Studying multiple cities would have widened the theoretical base and given cross-linkages as to dynamics but allowed less depth to the research. I have used that approach in two previous books, but learned in the last that communal theologizing and global analysis can result in idealized theology that is not always accurately reflecting realities.
2. Participant-observation: This study is not a statistical, sociological survey approach to vision change within a city but a participant-observer’s analysis. The observational nature of participant research must also be integrated with the predictive nature of the prophet and strategist in an urban missiology. This requires care to avoid predetermined biases. Fortunately, I have been somewhat blessed to be an ‘exile’ for long periods, so write from a liminal position within New Zealand Evangelicalism, living in several worlds concurrently and thus free to compare the present context under study with parallel universes (Bauman, 2000: 203).
3. A theological focus rather than strategy: Theology does not predict future effectiveness independent of the social structure of movements. These issues are too broad to cover in one study so I have chosen to focus on the theological. In doing so, I recognize the complex interplay between the social structure of movements and their underlying theology, each being determinative at certain points. Issues of group mobilization, the turning of theology into slogans for the masses, popular appeal, appropriateness of theological response for the given time and so on, are touched on in this study. Full development requires a parallel study.
Seeking the derivation of theology from the people, I have utilized aspects of ethnographic research. Definitions of cultural research, identify particular methodological aspects:
ethnographies generate hypotheses, focus on context, are written up using thick description, require participant-observation and use multiple measures for data collection, that is, triangulation… More recently, definitions explore case-study reporting and the dual roles of ethnographers in composition…(Bishop, 1999: 18).
This study carries all these elements. The diversity of disciplines in urban missiology results in a thick description and a diversity of styles. Oscillations between biblical thematic studies to theological concepts to cultural analysis to case study and strategic thinking, at times represent marked departures from classical historical/biblical theological studies done in New Zealand. They are, however, common in missiological studies globally (Elliston, 1997).
Role of participant-observer: In the research I have been observer, while at times, I was also involved relationally and emotionally and deliberately active in determining the directions of theological change, particularly in the second research cycle. Dewalt, Dewalt and Wayland talk of the tensions:
Participation involves emotional involvement, observation requires detachment. Pure observation requires removal from the object. Pure participation involves “becoming the phenomenon.” In examining participation, we need to identify both the level of participation and the level of emotional involvement (1998: 263-4).
I prefer to see these as integrative aspects of truth seeking. This is something I have developed in missiological research over the last two decades. While I have sought full engagement with the processes under study; in my analysis I have sought to be objectively detached. This involved defining my biases without necessarily rejecting them and identifying emotional and volitional elements that affect my evaluations. In wanting Evangelicals to move in the directions proposed by the study, I have had to also evaluate hindrances to those progressions. In proposing a certain theological path ahead, I have had to deduce why other possible theological configurations (some held aggressively by those studied), will not achieve the ends proposed. In part, I also modified my relationships to the core group of leaders in the study, moving back from being instigator to observer, after an initial period as catalyst.
The Locus of Authority
This study is within an Evangelical and canonical tradition, which would understand that the knowledge of Christ, the living Word, is through the Scriptures as “the Word of God.”[21] They are seen in total as “truth,” or as the Westminster Catechism puts it, “the only rule for faith and practice.” This tradition holds that “all Scripture is inspired by God” (II Tim 3:16), including the sum total of Old and New Testament canon, as defined by the early church.
Personally, while this belief in the authority of the Scriptures may be rationally justified, it seems that all such logical arguments are circular and supplementary to experiential dynamics. Consistently, through the years, I have found myself agreeing with each rational step but with an intuitive sense that the mode of dogmatic or reductionist rationalism used to justify such an approach (e.g. Packer, 1976) itself is flawed.
Brueggeman helps here when he depicts the struggle for control of interpretation between the orthodox, who defended Reformation doctrine, the rationalists, who sought an autonomous learning space and the pietists who resisted the hardening of both orthodoxy and autonomous rationalism (1997:5,6). The pietistic impulse, that sense of the Holy Spirit’s leading, while applauding the rational affirmation of the Bible’s authority, sees rationalism as a secondary source of affirmation. This is as old as the monk Anselm of Canterbury’s notion of “faith seeking understanding.”. This contrasts with Descarte’s “appeal to reason through doubt.”
Evangelicalism also tends to ignore the relationship of the human to the divine in the development of the Scriptures and in the decisions defining the canon. This involves blind faith in the sovereign hand of God on these processes, ignoring issues of oral history and form criticism.[22] Numbers of evangelical scholars (Hagner, 1998) have moved to a wider acceptance of these fields and greater appreciation of the human traditions in the biblical manuscripts, particularly at the interface with postmodernism (Dow, 2005). The basis of my commitment to a classical Christian and evangelical view of the whole of Scripture as being the Word of God is thus largely a pragmatic, pietistic understanding that recognises these human elements in the communication of the divine. This is not illogical but also not watertight.
Commonly, in the rationalist analysis of religion, religious experience is relegated to psychological realms. However, this study begins with evangelical a priori assumptions of the Bible as authority and thus, secondly of an external God revealed in the Scriptures as supernatural and personal. The Scriptures show development as to the personality of the Holy Spirit. This begins with the wind of God (ruach), the Spirit, involved in a three-way conversation within the Godhead, in the work of creation. It extends to the teaching of Jesus about the personality of the Spirit as guide (Rom. 8:14), counsellor, teacher and the one who speaks, convicts and bears witness to truth (John 14:15,26; 16:8,9). This contrasts with the understanding by over a third of those identifying themselves as Christians in New Zealand, that the Spirit is an impersonal life force (Webster & Perry, 1989:83)[23].
Given the scriptures as source of authority, the logical extension of these statements is to presume that when people speak of personal encounters with God the Holy Spirit, they may reasonably be speaking truth (i.e., they are not deluded). Alternatively, these experiences can be logically tested against the biblical data as to the nature of God and his encounters with men and women in redemptive history and the nature of the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures themselves give guidelines for judgement of the validity of prophecy and other supernatural phenomena.
The study presumes some missiological background in the literature of pneumatology and phenomenology of religion. For those coming from another faith community, helpful foundations may be found in anthropologist Paul Hiebert’s “Flaw of the Excluded Middle” (1982), or the sympathetic analyses of the Pentecostal movement in Harvey Cox’s Fire from Heaven (1995). Morton Kelsey’s works analysing Christian supernatural phenomena from Jungian psychological perspectives (1977; 1991; 1995) could follow. Or within charismatic evangelical literature, John Wimber’s exegeses (1985) on the miraculous in the life of Jesus and church history and its implications in terms of theological interpretation of phenomenology are useful.
I began this introduction with stories framing the topic of this research. I have then outlined the topic, content, processes, presuppositions and limitations. Some essential definitions have been documented. I will develop the hermeneutic theory underlying this study in chapter 2.
WORKS CITED
Ahdar, Rex. (2000). World's Colliding: Conservative Christians and the Law. Gower House, Croft Road, Aldershot, Hants GU11 3HR, England: Dartmouth Publishing and Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Bauman, Zygmunt. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Publishers.
Bebbington, D.W. (1989). Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History From 1730's to the1980's. London: Unwin Hyman.
Bishop, Wendy. (1999). Ethnographic Writing Research. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers.
Bosch, David. (1991). Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.
Brueggeman, Walter. (1997). Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Conn, Harvey. (1993). A Contextual Theology of Mission for the City. In Charles van Engen, Dean S. Gilliland & Paul Pierson (Eds.), The Good News of the Kingdom (pp. 96-104). Maryknoll: Orbis.
Dewalt, Kathleen, Dewalt, Billie & Wayland, Coral B. (1998). Participant Observation. In H. Russell Bernard (Ed.), Handbook of Methods in Cultural Anthropology. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press and London: Sage Publications.
Dow, Malcolm. (2005). An Evangelical Response to Postmodernity. Retrieved 11 Nov, 2005, from http://www.bethtephillah.com/articles/postmodernthesis.html.
Elliston, Edgar J. (1997). Missiology: A Multidisciplinary Research Based Discipline. In Introduction to Missiological Research (pp. 207-220). Pasadena: Unpublished manuscript.
Gilling, Brian. (1989). Mass Evangelism in Mid-Twentieth Century New Zealand. In Douglas Pratt (Ed.), Rescue the Perishing (Vol. 1, pp. 43-53). Auckland: College Communications.
Grigg, Viv. (1985/2004). Biblical Reflections on Land and Land Rights. Auckland: Urban Leadership Foundation.
---. (1996). AD2000 Cities Database, Global Ministry Mapping System CD, from http://www.gmi.org/research/database.htm#Countries,%20Provinces,%20Cities.
---. (2000d, Nov 15, 2001). The Vision for Auckland Transformation Network. Retrieved May 15, 2005, from http://www.urbanleaders.org\Urban_Leadership\ Vision_for_Auckland\SocietalTransform.htm.
Hagner, Donald. (1998). The New Testament and Criticism: Looking at the Twenty-first Century. Theology, News and Notes, 7-10.
Hathaway, Brian. (1990). Beyond Renewal: The Kingdom of God. Milton Keynes, England: Word Books.
Hiebert, Paul. (1982). The Flaw of the Excluded Middle. Missiology, 10 (1 (Jan 1982)), 35-47.
Kelsey, Morton. (1977). The Christian and the Supernatural. London: Search Press.
---. (1991). God, Dreams and Revelation. Minneapolis: Augsberg Fortress Publications.
---. (1995). Healing and Christianity: A Classic Study. Minneapolis: Augsberg Fortress.
Mouw, R. J. (1973). Political Evangelism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
---. (1976). Politics and the Biblical Drama. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Neuhaus, R.J. (1984). The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Oden, Thomas. (1995). So What Happens after Modernity? A Postmodern Agenda for Evangelical Theology. In David S. Dockery (Ed.), The Challenge of Postmodernism (pp. 392-406). Grand rapids, MI: Baker Books.
Packer, J.I. (1976). Fundamentalism and the Word of God. Downers Grove, IL: IVP.
Shipp, Glover. (1992). On the Urban Scene, We Must Know the Territory. Journal of Applied Missiology, 03 (1).
Smidt, Corwin E., Kellstedt, Lyman A., Green, John C. & Guth, James L. (1999). The Spirit-Filled Moves in Contemporary America: A Survey Perspective. In Edith L. Blumhofer, Russell P. Spittler & Grant A. Wacker (Eds.), Pentecostal Currents in American Protestantism (pp. 111-130): University of Illinois.
Swanson, Eric. (2003). Ten Paradigm Shifts Towards Transformation. Retrieved Oct 6, 2003, from http://www.urban-ministries.org/Articles/paradigm.htm.
Tippett, Alan. (1973). Missiology, a New Discipline. In Alvin Martin (Ed.), The Means of World Evangelization. Pasadena: William Carey Library.
Webster, Alan & Perry, Paul. (1989). The Religious Factor in New Zealand Society: A Report of the New Zealand Study of Values. P.O. Box 9046, Terrace End, Palmerston North: Alpha Publications.
Wimber, John. (1985). Power Evangelism. San Francisco: Harper and Row.
[1] Throughout, I use illustrative cameos to anchor the study to the local realities.
[2] Figures explained in Chapter 4.
[3] A hui is a gathering for debate of an issue on a Maori marae (meeting house), often lasting 2-3 days.
[4] Summary discussions may be found in Grigg (2000d). I have developed reflections on the others in papers from the hui and in VisionNZ publications.
[5] Harvey Conn, defined a similar question in tripartite terms: “What is the role of the Spirit of Christ in the projection of the image of God and the nature of the cosmic Christ into urban structures and urbanism of the modern city” (1993: 103)?
[6] This study presumes the existence of such public space in Auckland, hence “transformation” focuses not on the development of such a space (a primarily political question), but how to utilize it. Neuhaus has analysed this in The Naked Public Square for America (1984). Mouw, has sought to do so for Evangelicals (1973; 1976).
[7] “Orthodox” in their commitment to the historic creeds and the authority of the Scriptures. Evangelicals would prefer to be simply known as “Christians” who follow the beliefs of the first Christians. “Orthodoxy is that sustained tradition that has steadily centered the consenting church in the primordially received interpretation of the apostolic witness” (Oden, 1995:398).
[8] Historian Bebbington (1989:3) speaks of conversionism, activism, Biblicism, and crucicentrism as the four priorities of evangelicalism. Expanded definitions may be found in Ahdar (2000:40). I do not use his phrase ‘conservative’ Christians, because these groups rarely use it, though in the past it was often used of Evangelicals in the U.S.
[9] Liberal Protestant is utilised in this study not from within the self-definition of those who would see themselves at the forefront of Protestant liberalism, but as the ‘other’ for evangelicals. Those who are not evangelicals because they do not accept that all written scripture is inspired, or essentially accurate, and do not centralise evangelism etc.
[10] I use capitalised “Evangelical”, “Evangelicals” and “Evangelicalism” when referring to the broad movement or a sense of official status or movement status and “evangelical” as an adjective or when referring to the dynamics of action or belief system.
[11] Global missions researcher, David Barrett (1988:116), predicted a year 2000 figure of 562 million Pentecostals and charismatics, out of the total active world Christian population of 1,277 million. This places them as a larger group than Protestants, second only to Catholics as a major Christian grouping.
[12] At times in this study, to save time, ‘Pentecostals’ are subsumed with fundamentalists and Evangelicals under the generic word, “Evangelical”.
[13]Throughout the study, the Holy Spirit will be identified with feminine pronouns, in line with Wesley’s usage and the feminine use of the word in the Scriptures, whereas God the Father, is identified in the masculine, following classic use, while recognising that he is the source of both male and female. This is not a developed theological statement, just a convention to remind myself of the complementariness of the godhead.
[14] Smidt et al. indicate, from a US study, though with reasonably small sample, that 55% of White Pentecostals and 33% of Black Pentecostals speak in tongues, while 74% of nondenominational charismatics speak in tongues (1999: 116). One is presuming similarities in NZ Pentecostalism.
[15] However, a higher percentage of nondenominational charismatics speak in tongues (Smidt, 1999: 116).
[16] Term developed in a 1910 General Assembly of the American Presbyterian Church, a statement of “Five Fundamentals” considered nonnegotiable: the miracles, virgin birth, atoning death and resurrection of Christ and the authority of Scripture.
[17] As late as 1973, Tippett was writing Missiology, a New Discipline (1973).
[18] See Luzbetak (1989:12-15) and Bosch (1991:8-11) for definitions.
[19] It is normative in missiology to follow the American Psychological Association style formats. I have modified these slightly as I prefer full Christian names in bibliographies.
[20] Based on the AD2000 Cities Network database of 6600 cities (Grigg, 1996).
[21] This contrasts with Karl Barth’s Christocentric Word as the only source of knowledge of God. “Christ is God’s word incarnate; the Word is in Scripture but the Scripture is not necessarily the Word. The word is God’s communication to humans; his self-disclosure in Jesus Christ.” Despite respect for Barth in his prophetic corrective within European liberalism, Evangelicals reject this view because of their doctrine of verbal inspiration as the basis of scriptural authority, understanding that the Scriptures have authority in and of themselves.
[22] Differentiation must be made between this position and that of fundamentalism (a sector of Evangelicalism), which would go a step further, into a slogan of “inerrancy.” This is a politico-religious trademark. It combines the ideas of the faithfulness of the Scriptures and the completeness of the canon as the word of God, with a reductionism that rejects attempts to understand the human component of revelation and transmission (Hagner, 1998). Pentecostals would reject the term fundamentalist, but in general would be “fundamentalistic”.
[23] 43% of those who identify as Anglicans, 40% of Presbyterians, 33% of Methodists, 29% of Catholics, 25% of Other Christians and 13% of Baptists were identified as preferring a belief in “some sort of spirit or life force” over against belief in a “personal God”. Webster and Perry do not analyse the correlation but one can observe a correlation with the percentage of attendance by adherents in each denomination. The greater the attendance, the higher the belief in a personal God (Webster & Perry, 1989: 38).